Very Much Not
by Queen Edmund Pevensie
Summary: 5x22. Lisa opens up her door to a man who is very much not alive, and very much not with his gigantic little brother.
1. Very Much Not

**A/N: 5x22. This is my Swan Song piece. Wrote this during our breaks during drivers ed. There are notes in between paragraphs and in the margains. Anyway, I blame the not-goodness of this piece on the fact that this was written while I was thinking about cars, sitting on an air-conditioning vent. **

**Disclaimer: Disclaimed. **

**Very Much Not **

I don't know Dean Winchester well. I spent a weekend with him about ten, twelve years ago, he dropped by over three years ago, and told me he'd be proud to be Ben's father, and then he dropped off the map for almost two years.

I called once, during that time, and I got Sam instead of Dean. Sam told me Dean wasn't available, and I shouldn't expect to hear from him ever again.

Then, he showed up on our doorstep, not even a month ago and outright told me he was going to die.

And now, he's here. Very much not dead, in his car, without Sam.

With_out_ Sam.

I've met Sam twice, and, not counting the time during the summer of 2008, I've had one conversation with him, asking me where Dean went and what did he say, but if there was one thing I knew about Dean Winchester by the end of that first weekend, it was his the-size-of-a-moose-little-brother, back when Sam _wasn't_ the size of a moose, was the most important thing in his entire life.

Here he is, on my front step, very much not dead, but very much without Sam. Sam hasn't been with him any of the times he's knocked on my door, but this time is different. It's like Sam doesn't even exist in his world anymore. Dean is very much without his ironically called little brother.

I didn't see it when I opened the door, because Dean was alive, or very much not dead, and that was the last thing I was expecting. To see Dean again at all, dead or not dead.

He smiled at me, which was more than last time, but not like the other two times I'd seen Dean before that. Not the blindingly cocky smile that made Dean perfect. This smile was _not _Dean. It was tired and shaky, and whiled Dean was very much not Dean, he was obviously very much not alive. Not without Sam.

Dean cleared his throat, and tried that smile again, and it looked like he was using all of his energy to stand there and smile a smile that looked like it was causing him pain. "Hey, Lisa," he said, and that was a new side of Dean too. The choked, subdued sound of his new deep and scratchy voice. Last time, he was hopeless, this time, he's all but dead. "If it's not too late," he said, and the way he said it betrayed that it was too late, no matter what I said, "I'd like to take you up on that beer." The words were right, the tone was not. I could hear the pleading in his voice, both begging that it is and it isn't too late. That I've moved on, but let him in please. Just for tonight.

"Yeah, of course," I said. "Come in." But I didn't back up, and next thing I know, Dean Winchester, best-night-of-my-life-_Dean_, was in my arms, and he laid his head on my shoulder.

He didn't make a sound and the door was still open behind him. He didn't cry, but he was shaking like if he wasn't so empty, he would be. It was frightening how quiet and still this rather large and generally loud man had become.

I didn't ask. I didn't have to. I didn't know what Dean had been through those past few years, but it seemed like he had finally broken, that _this _was the worst. This was the end for him.

I didn't mention Sam that night, or the next night, or ever. I never asked about Sam, or what happened that night, but I never had to.

Dean never mentioned Sam to me or Ben. Dean never told us where Sam was or what happened that drove him to us. Dean was able to.

In all the time Dean was with us, no one mentioned Sam once, because we knew. Dean didn't have to tell me.

Sam was gone, and what happened to him was worse than dying.

So I held a not-crying Dean Winchester in my doorway, and I couldn't even feel anything but grateful that he was alive.

Or, at the very least, not dead.

**A/N: So...I could continue with the Swan Song pieces of someone wants...? Let me know. **


	2. The Morning After

**The Morning After**

It was the first morning after Sam had died. Dean was sitting up in bed with his head buried in his hands. Lisa wasn't in the room. It was late. Ben was at school. The world kept spinning as if the biggest battle the world would have ever seen was narrowly avoided less than twenty four hours ago.

But not for Sam because he pulled back his hand and jumped straight into Hell and saved the world.

And not for Dean. For all the fighting and arguing and lying they had done in the past two years, hell, in their entire lives, Sam was still Dean's little brother and he still didn't know how to live without him. As soon as Dean could stand without feeling like the ground was going to open up and swallow him too, Dean was going to get Sam out of Hell. Out of the cage with the Devil, and back home, where he'd be miserable, and tall, and irritating, but at least he'd be _safe_.

Dean rubbed his hand over his face and the sun that wasn't put out by archangels yesterday was peeking through the curtains and glinted off his ring. The ring Dean had worn for no reason for so long he couldn't even remember why he wore it. The sun that shined because it was early May and Sam had just turned twenty seven when he died, but now he wasn't coming back. The sun glinted off his ring and Dean remembered how he'd been so desperate to get the Devil back in the box he let Sam jump into Hell. And the only way to open the cage was to gather up the rings of the four horsemen and throw them on the ground and let your little brother convince you the only way to beat the Devil is for him to let the Devil take him over, and_ together_ they could jump into Hell, Sammy and Lucifer.

And Sammy would be stuck in Hell with Ultimate Evil for all eternity because of a couple of rings, just like the stupid one Dean wore on his finger, that stuck together and created a stupid portal to Hell. Dean sat and stared at the ring for a long time and finally he ripped it off his finger and threw it across the room.

It didn't make a sound when it bounced against Lisa's dresser and onto the thick, soft carpeting that was so unlike anything Dean had ever known, and unlike anything Sam would ever get a chance to see ever again, but Lisa was there, standing in the doorway. She didn't ask. She picked up the ring off the floor and put it in her pocket without a word. And then, still without saying anything at all, she sat next to Dean and put her hand between his shoulder blades. "Do you think you could eat something?" she asked. Dean shook his head. "Okay," she said. She didn't move or get up or breathe too loudly, and Dean didn't move or pull away when Lisa started to rub his back, just between his shoulders, his hunched, tense shoulders. Finally Lisa got up and kissed him on the top of his head.

When she was gone, but not out of earshot, Dean started to cry. He didn't stop because Lisa didn't come back in. Eventually, by the time Ben got home from school, Dean collected himself enough to leave the room and to put on fresh clothes, and Ben greeted him with all the excitement he remembered and Lisa pretended everything was normal and okay.

But Dean never saw his ring again.


End file.
